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Linux is an operating system that most of us have
heard plenty about, but probably haven't ever used on our own
PC's (experts excluded). In part 1 of the Getting
Familiar with Linux guide, we get your feet wet in Linux, and
explain some of the basic ways it differs from WindowsXP. This is a good
primer for beginners, so have a look. Next up is a very nice
21/5ppm colour laser
printer from Samsung called the CLP-550N, followed by our review of the Albatron
PC6600U SLI compatible PCI Express videocard. A very
low noise cooling solution is employed on the PC6600U,
making it stand out from the flurry of Geforce 6600's recently released.

Mike discusses the newly announced Cell
processor; it's multi-core design, and some of the potential benefits
for future Playstation users. There is lot's more in this issue of the
PCstats Newsletter, including a look at a recently released media
player, some advice on printer
sharing over networks, Intel's Sonoma chipset, PCstats Weekly Tech Tip, and a few
other items. Enjoy!

Since its creation in 1991 by Linus
Torvalds to the present day, Linux has been half
operating system and half symbol. This publicly licensed operating
system has a sort of mystical aura about it that's about as cool as you
can get in the computer world. Conquering
Linux has been the right of passage for a generation of computer
enthusiasts. In this first part of PCstats two-part guide to basic Linux
use and installation, we aim to familiarize you with using Linux for
everyday computing purposes by means of the most popular Linux
desktop environment, KDE.Continue
Here>>

The Samsung CLP-550N colour laser printer PCstats is testing out in this
review is one of the new breed of networked colour laser printers,
offering efficient colour and black and white laser printing over a wired
or wireless network. This 1200 dpi, 21 page-per-minute (black and white), 5
page-per-minute (colour) laser printer comes with several nice features,
not to mention the option of wireless
networking and expandable onboard memory.Continue
Here>>

What makes the Albatron Trinity GeForce PC6600U
special is that it is one of the first commercially available, virtually
silent videocards. This next generation 'stealth assassin' gives the
consumer excellent performance without the noise. Nice. Albatron has
slightly increased the core speed of the video processor on the PC6600U to
differentiate it from its PC6600 card. While both sport the same
Geforce 6600 GPU, the Trinity PC6600U has it clocked at
400MHz with 700Mhz memory speed, as opposed to 306MHz and 500MHz memory clock for
the PC6600. Continue
Here>>

IBM, in cooperation with fellow industry giants Sony and Toshiba,
recently announced a new
processor, called the Cell. The Cell processor is vastly different,
inside this tiny chip is a powerful 64-bit
Dual-threaded IBM PowerPC core but also eight proprietary 'Synergistic
Processing Elements' (SPEs), essentially eight more highly specialized
mini-computers on the same die. PCstats is going to take a quick look at
what's currently known about the architecture of the Cell
processor
and its potential as a rival to today's x86-based 32 and 64-bit
processors.Continue
Here>>

As PCstats recent trip to Gigabyte's
Nan-Ping factory in Taiwan showed us last summer
(during Computex 2004), there's a lot to making
motherboards. In fact, producing and testing a single
motherboard involves a mind-boggling host of automated
machines, people and processes; so we'd like to
detail the whole assembly line to give you a feel for
how things are really made.Follow
along as PCstats walks through the whole motherboard
manufacturing process.Continue
Here>>

Computers should be essentially
immortal right? Anyone who's ever owned a computer
knows that this is not quite true. Computers and their
component parts do have a finite life span, and just
like us, they have a list
of afflictions that are most likely to claim their
digital existences. A few months ago the PCstats
Newsletter asked its readership a pretty simple
question;"have
you ever killed your PC?" Hundreds of stories
flooded in, encompassing everything from standard
computer failures to tales of blue smoke and fire.
Continue
Here>>

Smaller, fixed memory players like the Samsung
YP-55i are just fine for the morning commute, a trip to the store, a jog
around the block, or whatever. Able to store
192MB worth of music in MP3 or WMA format, the roll-of-quarters sized
YP-55i also includes a digital FM
tuner. It also offers the very neat
capability of encoding FM-Radio to MP3 recordings on the fly; how cool is
that!?

In this short but sweet guide,
PCstats will look at how to make a printer available over your home
network using Windows XP's built-in
sharing abilities. Since most of us use USB or parallel connected
printers, we are going to assume that this is the same for you. This
article assumes that you have a printer
correctly installed
on a Windows XP computer and a working network connection to at least one
other computer. If you need help in setting up your home network, be sure
to read PCstats in depth guide to Home Networking and Wireless Networking
before getting started here. Continue
Here>>

PCstats Weekly Tech Tips: Time Control and Printers

If you're concerned about co-workers printing our resumes after hours, why not
limit printing to business hours? This feature is already built into WindowsXP and
is quite easy to configure. Go to the control panel and open up the
Printers/Printers and Fax's folder. From there right click on the printer you
want to limit and go to properties. That will open up a new window and click on
the advanced tab. From there select the Available from radio box and enter the
times you'd like the printer to be available.

From now on, whenever someone tries to print something from that PC who does not have
administrative access, they will only be able to print at the allocated
times.

We're looking for new people to join the PCStats Folding@Home team and help us to break
into the top 50 teams!

Our readers ask a lot of questions, and now you can see all the answers! Every week from Tues. to Thurs. around 5pm, keep an eye out for the new PCstats Q & A column as it pops up on the front page of PCstats. The only address you need to remember is www.pcstats.comIf you miss it, select the 'Tips' news category from the box just below our four latest feature reviews to read through all the tech advice that has been dished out.

In January, Intel announced the second generation of its wildly successful Centrino mobile technology for laptops, code named 'Sonoma.' As you probably know, the Centrino name can only attached to laptops featuring an Intel mobile M processor and compatible Intel chipset in conjunction with an Intel Wireless adaptor. This new generation of the technology will still be commercially branded as Centrino, but includes laptops using the new 915 Express GM, GMS, PM and GML chipsets as well as new 533MHz bus, 2MB cache Pentium M processors.

Since the original Centrino technology came onto the scene, we have seen several advances in mainstream PC technology and Sonoma will integrate many of these into your laptops. For starters, PCI-Express 16x graphics will now be available in the 915 Express PM chipset, bringing faster graphics performance to the mobile market. Also, DDR-2 in both dual and single channel varieties is now supported, along with conventional DDR memory. A new line of Pentium M 'Dothan' processors has been introduced, running at 533MHz FSB. The switch to DDR-2 should have power saving benefits as DDR-2 modules are less power hungry than conventional DDR. Price is another matter though.

The new 'Intel Control Hub' for Sonoma is the ICH-6M, a variant of the ICH-6 Southbridge chip found on 925X and 915 desktop boards. This adds SATA support to the laptop market, though any benefit this will offer is dubious, since RAID is not supported, and availability of SATA 2.5" drives is currently poor. IDE drives will continue to be supported. PCI Express 1x support is also added, and may appear in the form of ExpressCard support, a technology we discussed in our PCI Express article that may eventually replace the PCMCIA interface. Last but not least, Intel's High Definition Audio technology is now onboard.

Integrated graphics in the 915 Express GM, GMS and GML models will be provided by Intel's GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) 900 chip. First seen in the 915 'Grantsdale' desktop chipset, this will offer decent 3D performance to users. The 915 Express PM chipset will feature a full PCI Express 16x interface for third-party mobile graphics chipsets.

Intel appears to be
forgoing the usual massive price increase expected with new
processors and chipsets, so the price premium of new Sonoma-equipped
laptops should not be massive. A lot depends on where DDR-2 prices
go by the spring though.